Conducting market research in emerging markets

Market research challenges and marketing decision making in Indonesia

Assignment description:

Indonesia is one of the largest newly industrialized countries, which provide some of the biggest growth opportunities for international businesses. However, decision making in such markets is fraught with potential risk – much of this risk stems from poor quality information upon which decisions are made. Enhancing the quality of such market information is therefore of paramount importance to the marketing manager.

Conducting market research in emerging markets like Indonesia poses significant challenges for companies. This assignment requires you to select three of these generic market research challenges and discuss them in relation to Indonesia. For each you must describe the challenge and consider the risk it poses to reliable market research and effective marketing decision making.

NB. For this assignment you must focus specifically upon challenges for international marketing research and decision making, i.e., not general international marketing considerations.

Assignment tasks:

International marketing research presents the international marketing manager with many potential barriers to obtaining reliable and accurate market information. These include aspects such as:

? Availability and reliability of research resources and suppliers
? Selecting appropriate data collection methodologies
? Research costs variations

Not to mention a host of related macro and environmental differences relating to:

? Political and legislative issues
? Basic infrastructure
? Cultural differences
? Social and market structure differences
? Communication and technology difficulties
? Accessibility

In this assignment you must first choose three potential pitfalls of conducting research in emerging markets. For each, you should describe the challenge and then consider the risk it poses to effective decision making.

? Introduction – Write about 150 words on the increasing significance of emerging markets and international marketing research, as well as introduce your paper.

? Pitfalls/risks of research in emerging markets – Write about 400 words on each of three pitfalls.

? Conclusion – Write about 150 words summing up the importance of overcoming the pitfalls of emerging market research and reducing associated decision making risks.